Art Daily announced comedian Jon Stewart will join the board of the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum.

Stewart went on air this past December, publicly shamed the Senate for stalling the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, and criticized CBS, NBC and ABC for failing to report the issue. According to Stewart, “There was one network that gave the 9/11 first responders story the full 22 minutes of intense coverage that it deserved. But that network, unfortunately, was Al Jazeera. Our networks were scooped with a sympathetic Zadroga Bill story by the same network that Osama Bin Laden sends his mix tapes to.” » Read the rest of this entry «

This year one of the holiday gift items I requested was a long list of books and films about 9/11. My fabulous husband cleaned out my Amazon wishlist, which means 1) I better get reading and 2) I must now restock that list because I have a birthday in February and there is a seemingly endless list of resources to consult for this dissertation.

A few nights ago, I was reading one of the new books in the pile, Trauma Culture by E. Ann Kaplan. She has a remarkable way of pulling the reader into her work. In the introduction, Kaplan writes about her own experience of 9/11 to demonstrate, among other things, the merging of personal and cultural trauma.

I found her writing to resonate in the context of my current research project, but also in the wake of the tragedy that took place just two weeks ago in Arizona. She writes, “Trauma can never be “healed” in the sense of a return to how things were before a catastrophe took place, or before one witnessed a catastrophe; but if the wound of trauma remains open, its pain may be worked through in the process of its being “translated” via art.” » Read the rest of this entry «

Construction at the World Trade Center Site. These huge cubes are the footprint of the Twin Towers. Soon they'll be waterfalls as part of the National 9/11 Memorial.

I got back from an incredible research trip a few weeks ago. I went out to NYC for the 9th anniversary of 9/11. While I was there I spent a lot of time near Ground Zero, visiting memorial sites and interviewing people involved in memorial projects. While all of these traditional research tools were incredibly valuable, I also realized that some of my most informative conversations about the way people are feeling right now were the unofficial sort. The kinds of conversations that happen over a three-hour cup of coffee with a friend I haven’t seen for 2 years. » Read the rest of this entry «